The present invention relates to call routing in relation to call centers logically composed of a number of workgroups. In particular, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to call routing in relation to call centers capable of handling both traditional telephone calls and VoIP (xe2x80x9cVoice over IPxe2x80x9d) calls.
The selective routing of incoming calls through the public telephone network to the most appropriate workgroup of a call center and then to the most appropriate agent in the selected workgroup is a key activity in ensuring the efficient operation of a call center. A number of solutions have been proposed in the past, notable amongst which are those disclosed in the following US patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,737,983xe2x80x94describes a method of balancing traffic loads to a plurality of ACDs in which xe2x80x9ccall congestion dataxe2x80x9d is fedback from ACDs to an update processor that controls the updating of a routing table to cause the latter to reflect the desired % of calls to go to each ACD. The routing table is used by a service control function of the PSTN to route calls to the appropriate ACD.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,350xe2x80x94describes a system in which the service control function of a PSTN queries a routing processor of the subscriber (e.g. call center) network to be told the number to which a call should be routed to access a particular resource. Routing is done on the basis of call identification information and capacity percentages (% of calls to go to particular resources).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,268xe2x80x94describes a system in which routing is done on the basis of network usage, ACD availability, and route costing data.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,291,550xe2x80x94describes a system in which the call center operator defines the routing policy to ACDs and periodically uploads it to a dynamic network call distributor. Routing is dependent on call class (indicated by elements in dialed number) as well as traffic load and routing parameters.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,452xe2x80x94describes a system in which a central controller generates control signals for controlling both the telephone network and the caller resource (ACDs) so as to optimally route the call.
Whilst the foregoing prior art disclosures only concern the routing of voice calls through the telephone infrastructure, it is also known to effect routing control for other call types such as voice calls passing as packet data over a data network, or text-based calls such as e-mails. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 5,765,033 describes a system in which information is extracted from e-mail received at a call center and is used to select an agent with appropriate skill to which the email should be routed (this system concerns internal routing in a call center rather than routing to the call center itself). U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,143 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,130 both describe the use of a central routing controller for routing Internet calls as well as normal PSTN calls.
An important consideration in implementing a call routing control system is how to provide fault tolerance to avoid system collapse should part of the routing control means fail for whatever reason. The usual approach adopted is to provide duplicate routing controllers connected in parallel to the other system components; one such arrangement is described in the afore-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,143. However, the current systems do not provide easy scalability and are generally expensive to implement.
It is an object for the present invention to provide an improved call routing system and method which inherently provides fault tolerance capability and facilitates load spreading.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a call center system with multiple workgroups, each workgroup having a routing controller comprising:
routing-data generating means operative to derive workgroup routing data indicative of the suitability of destinations within the workgroup for receiving calls;
transfer means for passing the workgroup routing data directly or indirectly to the routing controllers of the other workgroups;
storage means for storing the workgroup routing data of all operative workgroups, and
global routing means for receiving a routing request in respect of a call incoming to the call center, determining from the stored routing data for all operative workgroups which workgroup is most suited to handle a call, and responding to the routing request accordingly.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling the routing of calls to a call center system with multiple workgroups, the method involving carrying out the following operations separately for each workgroup:
generating, for the workgroup concerned, workgroup routing data indicative of the suitability of destinations within the workgroup for receiving calls;
exporting the workgroup routing data for the workgroup concerned;
receiving workgroup routing data exported in respect of the other workgroups and storing the workgroup routing data of all operative workgroups, and
receiving a routing request in respect of a call incoming to the call center, determining from the stored routing data for all operative workgroups which workgroup is most suited to handle a call, and responding to the routing request accordingly.